Data crunchers - Insights you can share?
MsBaz2018
Posts: 384 Member
I was looking at my tiny data set (62 data points) in Excel today and got thinking about people who have tons more data. I was curious about what you've learnt.
I'll start. The striking for me was that half of the times I have weighed, I either gained, or weight didn't change. Yet overall I lost 10.2 lbs. Also I was expecting more fluctuations but the biggest one day variations I have had were a drop of 1.6 lbs and a jump of 1.2 lbs
Is there something interesting, quaint, insightful you've learnt from crunching your data?
I'll start. The striking for me was that half of the times I have weighed, I either gained, or weight didn't change. Yet overall I lost 10.2 lbs. Also I was expecting more fluctuations but the biggest one day variations I have had were a drop of 1.6 lbs and a jump of 1.2 lbs
Is there something interesting, quaint, insightful you've learnt from crunching your data?
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Replies
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I only weigh once a month due to heavy fluctuations from my period, but the connection between my weigh-in and my calorie counts is pretty strong, and it's nice to see that even with a few crazy days, I still lose. The overall impact of those days shows in less loss, but there's still loss, and I think this is beneficial for people who worry about days like Thanksgiving. I had more than one day of way-over-maintenance, didn't "make up" for it, and still lost, just slower.
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I've learned what my actual TDEE is, which is very useful.8
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I tend to lose weight in a whoosh every month or two. For a few weeks I will bounce around the same weight and then I will lose and it will stick.
I regained some weight last winter when I let my diet slip a bit. The past few months I've followed a diet that works well for my health and followed an ad libitum challenge to follow my hunger. I'm not working to lose but it is happening. Anyways, below are my weekly weigh-ins. You can see the pattern of bouncing around a number and then finally having the scale drop down.
168.4
169.4
167.8
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162.2
160.0
160.8
160.2
158.4
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162.0
159.4
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157.0
156.8
158.2
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156.6
157.0
155.4
154.2
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160.2
The last number is after I indulged in many more carbs than normal over the Xmas to new year week; it's mostly regained water weight... That's another trend I know of, more carbs = water weight gained. Cut carbs = water weight lost. Lol
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »I've learned what my actual TDEE is, which is very useful.
How do you figure it out?0 -
RelCanonical wrote: »I only weigh once a month due to heavy fluctuations from my period, but the connection between my weigh-in and my calorie counts is pretty strong, and it's nice to see that even with a few crazy days, I still lose. The overall impact of those days shows in less loss, but there's still loss, and I think this is beneficial for people who worry about days like Thanksgiving. I had more than one day of way-over-maintenance, didn't "make up" for it, and still lost, just slower.
Too true. In the long run a deficit will end up showing on the scale. I didn't seem to lose anything in December but at the end it was still 4 lbs down for the whole month.0 -
I have been on here for year...I can have 9 lb swings...heck, just this past week I had a 6 lb drop from one day to the next...it's totally crazy!!!
Insights that I gained from crunching the reports this year...overall I gained some muscle and lost some fat, which reduced my body fat percentage, but did actually result in a 10 pound gain over the year...I'm happy to find myself cool with that and not freaking over the number on the scale...at this point if I can keep the muscle I have and lose about 5 more lbs of fat, then I should be *perfect*...at least until I set a new goal!!!2 -
If I do bodyweight interval workouts I burn about 200kcal per 30 minutes (at my current maintenance weight). This is based on what's left when I look at MFP estimate of TDEE and calories consumed when losing weight. Actually, when I started maintaining I found that my TDEE is quite a bit higher than MFP estimates, and hence my interval workouts burn a lot of less energy. Doesn't matter. If I work out regularly and use MFP numbers it still works out for me 3
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »I've learned what my actual TDEE is, which is very useful.
How do you figure it out?
Add up calories consumed over data period (I recommend at least four weeks, and at least eight weeks for premenopausal women). If weight changed during that time period, multiply weight difference in pounds by 3500 and, if the change was weight loss, add to total calories consumed during data period, or, if change was weight gain, subtract from total calories consumed during data period. If weight did not change during data period, do not add or subtract from total calories consumed. Divide the adjusted calories consumed (that is, calories consumed plus or minus any adjustment for weight change) by the number of days in the data period. Result is your TDEE.
You can also calculate your daily expenditure absent intentional exercise by subtracting total exercise calories during the data period before dividing by the number of days in the data period.6 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »I've learned what my actual TDEE is, which is very useful.
How do you figure it out?
Add up calories consumed over data period (I recommend at least four weeks, and at least eight weeks for premenopausal women). If weight changed during that time period, multiply weight difference in pounds by 3500 and, if the change was weight loss, add to total calories consumed during data period, or, if change was weight gain, subtract from total calories consumed during data period. If weight did not change during data period, do not add or subtract from total calories consumed. Divide the adjusted calories consumed (that is, calories consumed plus or minus any adjustment for weight change) by the number of days in the data period. Result is your TDEE.
You can also calculate your daily expenditure absent intentional exercise by subtracting total exercise calories during the data period before dividing by the number of days in the data period.
That makes sense. I'll make the calculations when I have more data. Thanks0 -
Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays I tend to weigh the heaviest. Makes sense as Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays are my big lifting days.
Taking a two day diet break every quarter I won't say "forces" a whoosh but it sure helps if I'm stalled.
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Tankiscool wrote: »Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays I tend to weigh the heaviest. Makes sense as Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays are my big lifting days.
Taking a two day diet break every quarter I won't say "forces" a whoosh but it sure helps if I'm stalled.
Mine are Thursday, Friday, Saturday, as I have an office job and hold onto a bit of water weight in my legs when working. Monday morning usually is the lightest.1 -
- My fluctuations are pretty random throughout the week and I haven't got much of a pattern.
- My logging/calories burnt(fitbit) are correct to within 50kcals a day.
- I'm more hungry and tend to overeat the week before my period is due
And I had a couple more but I can't remember them right now1 -
This topic fascinates me because I’m an analytical guy. Here’s one for starters, I’ll do more later.
In a recent 2 month period, my morning weigh-in weight hit a new low 15 times over a 64 day period, about one evening 4 days for total loss of 13.0 lbs. or an average of 1.42 lbs. per week compared to goal of 1.5 lbs. per week.
Since I began last 8/31/2018, Imy weekly average liss has been 1.47 lbs., closer to goal. This is assuring that I should make my initial single point goal of 177.0 lbs. by the third week of February if I do as I’ve done thus far.1 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »I've learned what my actual TDEE is, which is very useful.
How do you figure it out?
Add up calories consumed over data period (I recommend at least four weeks, and at least eight weeks for premenopausal women). If weight changed during that time period, multiply weight difference in pounds by 3500 and, if the change was weight loss, add to total calories consumed during data period, or, if change was weight gain, subtract from total calories consumed during data period. If weight did not change during data period, do not add or subtract from total calories consumed. Divide the adjusted calories consumed (that is, calories consumed plus or minus any adjustment for weight change) by the number of days in the data period. Result is your TDEE.
You can also calculate your daily expenditure absent intentional exercise by subtracting total exercise calories during the data period before dividing by the number of days in the data period.
I've been keeping track in a spreadsheet my weekly calories using the weekly report on MFP. My 168 day TDEE average is 2,771. It started out around 2,950 the first month and has decreased to 2,600 due to the weight I've lost (45lbs). I'm still at 250lbs so that 2,600 TDEE is a reasonably accurate number. Currently, I'm eating 1,600 cals per day, so should continue losing at 2lbs per week for the near future. I'm a numbers guy, so this is kind of fun for me.1 -
pierinifitness wrote: »This topic fascinates me because I’m an analytical guy. Here’s one for starters, I’ll do more later.
In a recent 2 month period, my morning weigh-in weight hit a new low 15 times over a 64 day period, about one evening 4 days for total loss of 13.0 lbs. or an average of 1.42 lbs. per week compared to goal of 1.5 lbs. per week.
Since I began last 8/31/2018, Imy weekly average liss has been 1.47 lbs., closer to goal. This is assuring that I should make my initial single point goal of 177.0 lbs. by the third week of February if I do as I’ve done thus far.
Fascinating how close you are to forecast.
Tracking on the app Monitor My Weight, I had perfect alignment just once. I think it was 50% lost in 50%of the time planned.
Also I am on average 1.2 lbs lighter in the morning than the previous night's weight. I don't do evening weights often though and never record them.
I couldn't figure out the formula to look at longest streak of losses before a gain. But that's something I thought about writing a formula for :-)0 -
In August of 2017 I had two consecutive large weight swings (weigh daily) that showed as outliers in my dataset so I dug into the circumstances and did this write-up.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10672255/examination-of-outlying-scale-fluctuation#latest3 -
In August of 2017 I had two consecutive large weight swings (weigh daily) that showed as outliers in my dataset so I dug into the circumstances and did this write-up.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10672255/examination-of-outlying-scale-fluctuation#latest
Awesome! Complete with Executive Summary.0 -
Ok, now I'm bookmarking this thread. This is seriously geeky!pierinifitness wrote: »This topic fascinates me because I’m an analytical guy. Here’s one for starters, I’ll do more later.
In a recent 2 month period, my morning weigh-in weight hit a new low 15 times over a 64 day period, about one evening 4 days for total loss of 13.0 lbs. or an average of 1.42 lbs. per week compared to goal of 1.5 lbs. per week.
Since I began last 8/31/2018, Imy weekly average liss has been 1.47 lbs., closer to goal. This is assuring that I should make my initial single point goal of 177.0 lbs. by the third week of February if I do as I’ve done thus far.
Fascinating how close you are to forecast.
Tracking on the app Monitor My Weight, I had perfect alignment just once. I think it was 50% lost in 50%of the time planned.
Also I am on average 1.2 lbs lighter in the morning than the previous night's weight. I don't do evening weights often though and never record them.
I couldn't figure out the formula to look at longest streak of losses before a gain. But that's something I thought about writing a formula for :-)
I love drooling over data, and this is no difference. Though I guess being a woman for me means I can't work with predictions unless I'm looking at really long term trends and not single data points. I'm sure I'll store extra water just on the 5 week point, or get an unexpected whoosh. 1 -
I have about ten years worth of weight data between here and another website. I've finally exported all of them into one spreadsheet. I only have calorie data for about a 9-month period in the beginning and in the last 6 months. I've definitely notice a pattern in my monthly weight fluctuations based on my cycle (it goes up a day or two before that time of the month and it goes away five days later). My weight goes up on Mondays and I'm at my lightest during the middle of the work week. I also figured that based on my the previous 12 weeks worth of data, my TDEE is around 1800.2
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Unlike @yirara and @swirlybee I haven't (yet) detected any correlation between weight and cycle. 62 data points means only 2 cycles though. We'll see.0
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Unlike @yirara and @swirlybee I haven't (yet) detected any correlation between weight and cycle. 62 data points means only 2 cycles though. We'll see.
My cycle is simply based on sitting in an office or not. It's basically a 7 day cycle. Menstrual cycle: I don't really have that as I take the pill for usually about 3 months without break. That gives me quite some lovely, clean data 2 -
Additionally, I started weighing daily to figure out my actual TDEE. 500+ data points yields an average TDEE of right around 2500, approximately +250 over most any sedentary maintenance calculator I've seen. Coincidentally, using UA record or my Apple watch to "record" my calorie burn during my workouts (weight lifting, approximately 1 hour/day 5-6 days per week) I usually get 500-600 calories. Lends some credence to the typical advice to eat back half of one's exercise calories.1
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I have learned that I error on the side of logging too much but it usually fixes itself after enough time. My fat loss has been fairly consistent even if it doesn't show up on the bathroom scale for weeks at a time. My TDEE was estimated too high so I have started doing the calculation myself with the appropriate activity multiplier.
My doctor put me on a diuretic which has really muddied up the water recently data-wise but I am hoping in another week or two for things to clear back up.1 -
Using Fitbit averages my TDEE is 2176. Using Libra vs. MFP diary, I lose most on weeks where my average calorie intake is 1500 to 1700. I'm also heaviest on Monday, lightest on Friday. My Libra trendline looks like rolling hills. No sharp peaks or valleys, just a gradual downward slope with an occasional bump on the weekends. Obviously I'm not as active on weekends, plus I tend to overdo it. Something to tighten up on.1
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I have been using Libra for over two years now, (about 27 months), typically weighing about 4-7x per week (with some weeks skipped due to being away from home). I am used to the trends and fluctuations now, they aren't too crazy but I find because I calorie cycle my highest weight will be after the weekends and lowest is usually Friday morning. Also if I skip one lifting session or reduce my volume my weight will drop quite significantly (about 2-3lbs) and sometimes it freaks me out, so coming back from a vacation for example I will usually come back lighter... not because I was in a deficit or anything, but because I wasn't on my program. So I always have to remember how lifting really makes me retain water and to account for that when I change my programming around.4
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@AnnPT77 any thoughts on this topic, Ms Data?
I admit to being a data geek, but I'd seen this thread, and have trouble of thinking of things that generalize to others. For sure, calculating a personal NEAT/TDEE is a useful thing, but that' s been well addressed.
About the only other things I can think of are:
* I weight train in the (rowing) off season most years. When tracking meticulously, I saw an otherwise unexplained 2-pound gain at the start of weight training (at a time when I was feeling remarkably accurate at predicting gains, losses, and fluctuations based on logged eating/exercise); and a bookend otherwise unexplained 2 pound loss at the end of weight training for that season. Makes me suspect that for some of us, whatever water weight we gain for muscle repair may not drop off with time, if the training is progressive. (Its still not worth worrying about. It's still water weight.)
* If one treats this all as a fun science fair project, logging as meticulously as possible (if that's possible without creating obsession or psychological dependence - which varies by person, with personality type), then after a few months it can be practical to predict rate of gain, loss, and water weight fluctuation pretty accurately from calorie intake and activity levels, which is (to me) a very comforting thing. It de-stresses fluctuations, and helps with assessing whether . . . um . . . unusual behavior is worth trying, or not.
* It appears to me that a really huge, very rare overconsumption will not result in nearly as much "permanent" weight gain as raw calorie intake predicts. I suspect some of this is due to subtle activity up-regulation, and some to the body simply not being able to process all those extremely unusual calories in a short time period, so relatively more get excreted. This is a guess. And I"m not at talking about a weekly or so "cheat day" . . . I'm talking about 3 or more times TDEE on one day, maybe two, on a much more rare basis - like that holiday thing. Repeating: Just a guess, though based on n=1 experience. It's playing with fire, though.
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Morning BW is higher next morning if my last meal was eaten out, even if calories are controlled according to plan. Higher sodium and water retention?
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